Abstract

We compute the conversion factors needed to obtain the MS and renormalization-group-invariant (RGI) up, down, and strange quark masses at next-to-next-to-leading order from the corresponding parameters renormalized in the recently proposed RI/SMOM and RI/SMOM renormalization schemes. This is important for obtaining the MS masses with the best possible precision from numerical lattice QCD simulations, because the customary RI(')/MOM scheme is afflicted with large irreducible uncertainties both on the lattice and in perturbation theory. We find that the smallness of the known one-loop matching coefficients is accompanied by even smaller two-loop contributions. From a study of residual scale dependences, we estimate the resulting perturbative uncertainty on the light-quark masses to be about 2% in the RI/SMOM scheme and about 3% in the RI/SMOM scheme. Our conversion factors are given in fully analytic form, for general covariant gauge and renormalization point. We provide expressions for the associated anomalous dimensions.